Heat Lightning
by x-the-rising-x
Summary: “You had moved on! You didn’t love me anymore! What was I supposed to do? Brood over that forever?”There was a pause before Brooke spoke. “That's what you think? That I didn’t love you anymore? That I wasn’t in love with you anymore?” BLfuture oneshot


Hey girls, I've got a treat for you. **Merds**, or **Roswell Dream Girl **over on fanforum is composing a BL fanfic book to give to Mark, and she asked me to write a future fic for it. So I thought I would post it here as well. it's a one shot, and I hope you all like it!

* * *

**Heat Lightning**

Brushing her wet hair out of her face, she swung the large metal knocker against the oak door, hearing a satisfying thud that echoed through the large house. Seconds passed, and she tottered on the heels of her worn in sneakers, which she traded her Jimmy Choo heels for before she left. The rain from outside caused a humid mist to travel through her soaked hair, and her clothes were damp from sprinting across the lawn from where her car was parked in the street.

The door swung open to reveal Haley, looking frazzled but happy as usual. "Brooke! Thank god you're here," she exclaimed, moving aside so Brooke could enter the foyer.

"Sorry I'm late. Traffic was a bitch."

"No it's fine. Nathan's not even dressed yet, I was just worried about you."

"You're always worried, Hales," said Brooke through a laugh.

"Not so. You just never know in this weather," frowned Haley, opening a closet in the hallway and slipping on a pair of sensible flats. "The streets are slippery and dangerous."

"Well maybe you shouldn't go out then," said Brooke, faking worriment.

Haley laughed. "Please, with the precision and speed that Nathan drives at, I'll be surprised if we even get there before dessert."

As they descend the step into the large sunken living room, the girls launched into discussion over Brooke's blooming career. Haley scolded Brooke as usual, thinking that her friend was much too much of a workaholic, but Brooke merely shrugged it off.

"If I worked this much at 15, I would have never gotten into half the trouble I did in high school. Work keeps me busy."

"Just remember you're only 22, and it's the summer after your senior year of college" reminded Haley. "You should live a little."

Brooke snorted. "Says the girl with a four year old boy. Speaking of, where is my little James?"

With the last sentence, a shriek was heard, accompanied by a whirl of pajamas scurrying down the stairs and into Brooke's arms. "Aunt Brooke!"

Brooke laughed and swung the small boy up in the air. Haley just sighed.

"James, you're supposed to be in bed."

Brooke gave her godson an apprehensive look. James giggled.

"It's okay, Hales, I'll put him to bed," Brooke declared, swinging the overexcited child over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and ascending the spiral staircase, amidst shrieks of mirth and protest emitting from James.

* * *

Haley looked confused as she swung open the door in the middle of his third knock. "Lucas? What are you doing here?"

He stepped into the house, out of the rain, and Haley closed the door behind him. "Um, for James? I figured that babysitting required me to actually come over," he smiled, running a hand through his damp, and slightly grown in buzz-cut.

"I thought Brooke was babysitting?"

"Brooke?"

"Lucas?" The voice came from the stairs that the girl was descending. A weird thing happened then. Ever so slightly, his stomach flipped over.

"What's going on?" Nathan entered the room, dressed in a white polo and khakis.

"First of all," spoke Brooke, holding up a finger. She pointed to Nathan. "Nice outfit," she said with a sarcastic smirk. "Second of all, what is he doing here?" She finished the question pointing to Lucas, although the inquiry wasn't accusatory, just curious.

"He's here to baby-sit," replied Nathan. "What are you doing here?"

"She's here to baby-sit," Haley responded. "I told her to come."

"Well I told Lucas to come."

"You two really need to develop better communication skills," said Lucas in an amused matter of fact tone, looking quickly to Brooke for a smile, but she was just staring to the floor.

"Nathan, we're going to be late," whined Haley, grabbing her scarf from the hook.

"You're right," said Nathan, opening the door. "You two figure it out – just make sure one of you stays."

And then they were gone into the rain, and Brooke and Lucas heard the car start up, and saw the headlights flash against the window as the Mercedes backed out of the driveway.

Lucas finally looked to Brooke. She stood barefoot, toes curled over the edge of the carpet. She was in broken in jeans, that he was sure he remembered her having senior year of high school. In fact, he knew she had them. They had been sitting in his bottom drawer for months, even after they broke up, before she finally collected them. It was after graduation, after the babies were born and the excitement had all worn down. He had found her in his bedroom, hurriedly rummaging through his things, carefully taking her items that he never seemed to have the heart to throw away, even after he and Peyton got together. Wanting to avoid a confrontation, he had backed away from his side door, so she didn't see him, and took a lap around the block. When he had returned, she was gone, forgetting a single hair tie on his desk. He had yet to throw away that elastic, pathetic though it may seem.

The jeans fit her as well as they ever did. Her sweater came to nestle at her hips, her plain white t-shirt showed off a bit of skin along her stomach. She was underdressed from the last time he saw her, back at Christmas Eve dinner when they awkwardly tried to avoid each other the whole evening. Her hair, wet from the rain, was shorter than the last time he saw her, and red tints sat atop the locks that were normally brown.

"So." He broke the silence. "I can stay with James. He's asleep anyway – I'll probably just watch TV until Nathan and Haley get home."

Brooke nodded apprehensively, turning slightly to head for the door. He breathed a soft sigh, which was part relief, part disappointment. And then a large boom of thunder, and a harsh crack of thunder whipped around the house. She paused in her tracks and turned around.

"But what's the harm in waiting out the storm?" he heard himself saying. "It's not like this house isn't big enough for the two of us." Her eyes mingled with his own, and he saw a look of appreciativeness in her eyes.

"Thanks. I hate thunder storms."

"I know," he said, before he could stop himself. God, now she would think he was weird that he remembered. But then she smiled.

"I guess its kind-of hard to forget" she replied, as they moved to the living room.

True, Lucas said in his head. In the beginning half of senior year, he would awaken often during the night, with Brooke's scared whispers in his ear, her hand clasped tightly in his. He would mutter sleepily that everything was fine, before curling his form around her own, lulling her back to sleep with whispers in her ear.

They stood awkwardly at the side of the room, before Lucas gestured to the couch. "TV?"

Brooke nodded gratefully.

* * *

She was happy for the extensive wrap-around couch – that she didn't have to intentionally detach herself from Lucas by sitting across the room in a different chair, but that she didn't need to squeeze next to him on a love seat. She curled herself around a throw pillow at one end of the couch, while Lucas lounged at the other.

The lull of the laugh track accompanying the sitcoms Lucas had opted for was comforting. Surprisingly, so was the silence. The absence of conversation blended smoothly with the crashing of the storm outside. For a minute, Brooke began to relax. And then came the comment, slicing through the silence like a knife through steel.

"Are we ever going to talk about it?"

Her feet propelled her off the couch, and he was standing up too.

"You couldn't just let it be," she said, muttering, moving to the kitchen.

He followed her, his tone now angry. "Come on Brooke. You can't ignore this forever!"

She was flinging cabinets open, channeling all her anger, all her frustration, into the slamming of the cupboards. "I did it for eight months. I think I can go on for a handful more decades."

It was November when they slept together. Somehow they had both ended up at UCLA. His on-again off-again relationship with her best friend had finally dwindled away and sizzled out the summer before, when Jake Jagielski came back into the picture. He had told Peyton to go follow her heart, but secretly saw it as an out. And he and the cheery brunette had made it almost four years, as good friends no less, without bringing up their relationship. Almost four years.

_It was a soft knock, but Lucas was a light sleeper. He stumbled to the door and pulled it open, letting the light of the hallway flood into the dark apartment._

_Her lips were on his immediately, before he even realized who it was. She pulled him around, stumbling over the welcome mat, and shut the door, leaving the apartment once again drenched in darkness._

_It took it longer than it probably should have to pull away. And he didn't until he tasted the alcohol on her lips. _

_"What's wrong?" She sounded sober, yet unsure. The moonlight streaming in through the window bounced of her silky hair, which he reached out to touch. _

_"Have you been drinking?"_

_"Does it matter?" He felt her hand slide up his shirt, and he resisted the urge to give in to temptation, stepping away from her. Behind her smudged mascara, her eyes looked hurt, and also slightly frightened, scared of what she had just ruined – four years of rebuilding a friendship. _

_"It matters to me. You're going to regret this tomorrow."_

_"All I want is to feel good again, Luke," she whispered, biting her lip seductively and drawing closer to him. Their bodies touched, and he felt his wildly beating heart match hers. "If that means I'll feel guilty in the morning – so be it. But tonight – " she grabbed his shirt "all I want is you."_

_Though his conscience told him not to, he let the persuasion take over, leaning down, slipping her jacket over her shoulders, and capturing her lips in his own. Her lips parted, allowing his tongue entrance, and his conscience disappeared. _

She had been gone in the morning. He wasn't surprised – he knew to expect that. He was only disappointed. But the disappointment had started to ebb away – and he filled the void with distractions, trying to preoccupy himself. Though they had two classes together spring term, and saw each other everyday, this was the first time he'd really tried to speak to her. This was the first real conversation they were having since that night.

"Are you actually angry with _me_?" His tone was of shock incredulity.

"Would you be so surprised if I was?" She whirled around, her cheeks red with anger.

"Just a smidge! Let's backtrack, shall we? Who came to whose apartment? Who seduced who?"

"I was drunk! And you let me, even though you knew I would regret it!"

Lucas laughed bitterly. "Please, you knew exactly what you were doing."

"Why didn't you resist?" She was confused now, simply lost, trying to sort-out the details.

"Resist you?" His voice softened. "How?"

A single tear fell from her eye and she tried to brush past him, but he grabbed a hold of her arm. "Brooke. Why did you do it?"

She pulled away, ever so slightly, and looked down. "That night – I went to a bar downtown. And I saw Chase."

He hadn't been expecting that. Things between the Brooke and Chase had suddenly ended junior year, but Lucas simply figured it was the difficulty of the long distance thing. That's what he pretended had put a strain on his relationship with Peyton. But in reality, he was hiding from the truth.

"Yeah, he told me he was in the city, and was looking for me. And we got to talking and…and I just realized that I had no clue what had ended things." She looked to Lucas. "He was the perfect guy. He was everything I wanted. But there was something missing. He wasn't you."

Lucas stepped back. The thing he had been trying to avoid for the past four years – the thing that he thought he could bury if he tried hard enough – it was coming flooding back.

She herself looked taken aback by what she said – as though it had just hit her. Then she looked down. "You know what? Nevermind. I'm just going to go." She moved from the kitchen, walking quickly down the hall, wiping the beginning of a set of tears cascading down her eyes.

"Brooke." He followed her to the door. "Brooke!"

She lashed around. "What?"

He looked like he was about to say something, his lips on the verge of forming words. Then his phone began to ring. Tearing his eyes from her, he flipped open the cell and muttered a "Hello? Yeah…yeah sure…okay…be safe." He closed the phone and looked back to Brooke. "Nathan and Haley say that there's a hurricane watch. They're just going to get a room at the hotel the dinner's at. They said to stay here overnight, until the storm passes." His voice was flat, unemotional.

"I'm just going to drive home. I'll beat the hurricane," she muttered, grabbing her jacket from the hook by the door.

Lucas put a hand over hers, placing the coat back on the hook. When he spoke, his words were soft, without an edge. "Just stay. They have plenty of room."

Her expression changed from defiant to tired, and her shoulders dropped. She met his eyes for a few seconds, and then broke the gaze. "I'll take the guest room across from the master."

* * *

She had unearthed one of Nathan's old t-shirts from one of the drawers. It covered her knees and slipped over one of her shoulders but it would have to do. She had heard the TV go on downstairs. He was down there for only a few minutes, before she listened to his footsteps past her door, and the guest bedroom door at the end of the hallway slam shut.

She retreated to the attached bathroom and turned on the faucet. Grabbing a washcloth from the rack, she dabbed her face with soap and gently splashed some water on her face. When she looked up, he was looking at her in the mirror.

"Oh my gosh, Lucas!" She clapped her hands over her face. "You almost gave me a heart attack."

"Sorry," he said, looking only slightly apologetic.

As the shock wore off, her self-awareness took over. Her hair, tied up in a messy bun, was coming untied, and loose strands framed her face. All she was wearing was an old t-shirt. She felt her face flush slightly, as she moved to the closet and pulled out a sweatshirt. It wasn't until it was over her head, that she realized exactly which sweatshirt it was.

"Good taste," said Lucas pointing to the Keith's body shop logo. "Haven't seen that sweater in years," he finished, leaning against the doorframe.

It was true – she had worn it when she was cold one night senior year of high school, and then never given it back. Last summer when she crashed in Nathan and Haley's enormous house (That's what happens when you're an NBA star.), she had left it in the closet. And hadn't seen it until now.

* * *

"I can't remember why you left." The statement was simple, as Lucas moved into the bedroom. "I remember the night you broke it off. And I remember bits and pieces of what you said. But I don't remember why – and maybe it's because I never really understood."

She sighed slightly, absorbing herself in his eyes before speaking up. "You were absent, Luke. And I don't just mean physically. I just, I didn't feel like you needed me anymore. I felt useless in your life."

_"I am not pushing you away, Luke, I am holding on for dear life. But I need you to need me back."_

He realized it was true. "But it – I…I was so confused when you were gone. I was so lost. I _did _need you."

"And Peyton – Peyton understood you."

"Is that really what this is all about, Brooke? Your stupid high school insecurities? I was in love with you! I told you that as much as I could. And you pushed me back to Peyton."

"It took about thirty seconds for you to change your mind from me to her," Brooke said in a hurt tone.

"You had moved on! You didn't love me anymore! What was I supposed to do? Brood over that forever?"

There was a short pause before Brooke spoke again. "Is that what you think? That I didn't love you anymore? That I wasn't _in _love with you anymore?"

_"I love you Lucas – and I probably always will."_

And that's when he realized it. He saw it all. Everything he had ignored in the past – because it was all too much to deal with. Her vague explanation of her break up with Chase. Her hurt expression as she walked in on him and Peyton in Honeygrove. The blush on her face when he caught her staring at him during graduation. Her tears falling onto the page of his book as she read the passage he had written about her.

_"She was fiercely independent; Brooke Davis. Brilliant and beautiful and brave. In two years she'd grown more than anyone I had ever known. Brooke Davis is going to change the world someday and I'm not sure she even knows it."_

His body felt numb as he absorbed the truth – a truth he knew they had both covered up for four years. Four years spent falling in love with different people – her with a boy who would always be more than she could hope for, but never what she needed, and he with her best friend. By making himself pretend to fall in love with Peyton, it had become a reality. But throughout college, Lucas saw Brooke transform from the girl who had seduced him in their junior year of high school, to an extreme version of the girl he had written about in his memoir. And into a girl he knew he had always wanted – one he never should have gotten rid of.

"I just don't get it! We fought all the time, we never agreed! We didn't like any of the same things. You were so damn difficult all the time, and I've never been in a relationship where I felt so confused!" He knew he was ranting, and could see in her eyes that she was puzzled. Still, he plowed through – bursting to finish his thought. "But on those nights, where you would drive over to my house and curl up with me under the covers, and let me hold you –" He paused. "Nothing ever felt so right."

The kiss was inevitable – initiated by Lucas. Swooping down and brushing the hair from her face, he mended the gap between their mouths. Lips separating, she let him gain entrance with his tongue. He moved his hand to the nape of her neck, and down to the small of her back, softening the kiss. She finally pulled away.

"You should go," she murmured, resting her forehead against hers.

He nodded.

* * *

The lightening was radical now – the rain beating strongly against the window. He couldn't sleep. Looking to the digital clock, he saw the 1:23 flashing, and understood that he had hit the pillow an hour ago, and still had not shut his eyes.

The door to the bedroom opened and shut, and then Brooke was next to him. Crawling under the soft linens scared of the thunder, snaking her hand up his shirt.

"I know you hate thunderstorms. But I thought you loved lightening."

"I like heat lightening."

_"I love it when there's heat lightening at night."_

He smiled as she let her lips fall onto his for a few brief seconds. Then she curled up into his form, and shut her eyes. He lay there for a few minutes, not thinking, simply enjoying her presence. And finally, he drifted off to sleep.

* * *

please review darlings! 


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